The Army of the Indian Moghuls: Its Organization and Administration c10.s4.3

c10.s4.3

The *nezah* or lance was so prominent a part of the Mahratta equipment that one writer Mḥd Qāsim, Aurangābādī, (*Aḥwāl-ul-Khawāqīn*, fol. 201*a* and elsewhere) instead of the usual “accursed enemy” (*ghanīm-i-laʿīn*) calls them *nezah-bāzān*, “lance-wielders.” He thus describes, fol. 205*b*, their mode of using the lance: “They so use it that no cavalry can cope with them. Some 20,000 to 30,000 lances are held up against their enemy, so close together as not to leave a span between their heads. If horsemen try to ride them down, the points of the spears are levelled at the assailants and they are unhorsed. While the cavalry are charging them, they strike their lances against each other, and the noise so frightens the horses, that they turn round and bolt.”